From what I understand, there have been problems getting certain Creative Labs sound cards to work properly in Vista, even though they claim the cards are Vista compatible. A guy by the nick of "Daniel_K" (on the Creative Labs forums) hacked together drivers that actually work, as well as provide extra functionality on certain cards.

Technically (legally) he shouldn't have done this, as it breaks the EULA and Copyright and blah blah blah, fair enough, so Creative Labs went and did this:

Daniel_K:

We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards.  In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative.  Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended.  We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services.  The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing.  By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods.  When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own.  If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you.  We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages.  To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP.  In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules.  If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.

Phil O'Shaughnessy VP Corporate Communications Creative Labs Inc.

In other words, "thank you for fixing our stuff up, but get screwed". Like I said about, TECHNICALLY they are in the right, however they haven't delivered the service they offered (Vista compatibility), and rather than employing Daniel_k and sorting their junk out, they've done this.

Needless to say the backlash has been rather sever, with lots of Creative Labs customers objecting and saying they'll never use a Creative Labs product again. While I'm not a Creative Labs customer, I was thinking about getting one of their high-end sound cards for my next pc upgrade - but I won't even consider Creative Labs hardware anymore.

Read the original post (and responses) here: Message to Daniel_K.

Sucks to be you Creative Labs, you just messed up bad.

Another blog post over here (with links to the drivers in question).

Download page for "Daniel_k"s drivers (kX Project)

Mirror of the site's intro page

kX Project Support Site By Lex Nahumury - has some information and links regarding "Daniel_k"s work.

It looks like "daniel_k"s real name is Eugene Gavrilov (see credits page)

UPDATE: Someone's started a petition against Creative Labs.

UPDATE: http://boycottcreative.com

UPDATE:(borrowed from Igor_Levicki's post)

Here is how all this sh.t happened in 10 easy to follow steps:

1. Creative sold the hardware with a set of features (Equilizer, Mixer, Karaoke, DVD-Audio player, ASIO, hardware MIDI, etc)

2. Creative promised on the box that the driver updates will bring new features and improvements, not remove them

3. 64-bit XP and Vista came out and Creative released the drivers which reduce that set of features to basic audio playback which any onboard sound card can do equally well if not better (without snap/crackl/pop)

4. Customers felt shafted

5. Creative said "buy X-Fi it will work in XP x64 and Vista"

6. Customers bought X-Fi and it didn't work

7. Customers felt shafted again (do you notice a pattern here?)

8. Here came Daniel and fixed both issues

9. Daniel asked for donations solely to be able to buy hardware and test the drivers

10. Creative got the wrong idea and threatened to sue him because he: a) restored functionality they shouldn't ever revoked in the first place (and they dared to call him a thief!) b) showed how incompentent they are by fixing their X-Fi Vista drivers solely by reverse-engineering them c) dared to plead for financial help not as a compensation for his work but to be able to continue and do it better

UPDATE: donate to daniel_k by clicking here (and then clicking on the PayPal icon) or here :D